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Plastic water bottles! Did you know that companies are draining rivers dry with their bottled water? And adding to plastic waste! Tap water is impossible to drink. There are other sources. Personally, I have a medical horseshoe magnet that I place a glass pitcher on to provide me with drinkable water. I never buy bottled water!

It's easy to say you want to change the world. What can you, as an individual, actually do? Water, for example. Do you keep water running while you do the dishes? Do you take long showers? I personally soap up my dishes, then wash them. I also do dry skin brushing between weekly showers. What is dry skin brushing? You brush your skin with a long handled specially made bristle brush for dry skin brushing. Wash the hairy parts! This is good for you skin that dries out too much from too much soaping and showering. Bacteria is what causes odor; dry skin brushing removes the layer of bacteria. Dry skin brushing stimulates your skin, too, bringing more blood circulating to your skin.

What else can you do?

If we stop eating animals, you can expect to get your vegetables directly, instead of second hand. The amount of food we give animals can amount to more food available for human consumption, if we go vegetarian; this can reduce hunger and support access to food for humans. As it is, meat eaters are getting their vegetables second hand.

What else?

Bring your own bags when you go food shopping. In this way, you can help reduce so much plastic use. Until alternatives to plastic are more accessible, taking your own reusable bags helps.

What else?

Buy products like Miracle II Soap. This is a non-poisonous soap good for yourself, your home, your plants. Instead of poisoning yourself with chemically dangerous products, even your toothpaste, you can help yourself and stop polluting the environment.

Action! Take action in your own life and support your words to aid in the rescue of our world.

Sexual behavior was more hidden and discretion was the order of the day. People still did what they did, just more secretly. Yes, there were contraceptive methods, but not, for some reason, easily available. In a small town where everyone knew everyone else, it was too embarrassing to go to the drug store to get some.

Because abortion was illegal, there existed illegal clinics. Some of these clinics were death traps. Some were legitimate clinics where doctors, for a price, performed abortions. Some women who could not afford these doctors performed their own using coat hangers. Many women died of complications, infections and internal damage.

Roe vs Wade was a welcome change. Abortions were now safe for women. It took an outcry to achieve this law. It took too many deaths to achieve this law.

It is shocking we will return to banning abortion. Even in Catholic Ireland, abortion is now legal! Sex education may not be given in schools these days, but contraception is available, and affordable. Anyone can buy contraception.

I learned Shiatsu while living in Japan. Shiatsu is the needle-less version of traditional acupuncture. Farmers, country people and town folk all were familiar with acupressure. Everyone suffers pain. Everyone I met from Japan and Korea knew natural ways to relieve their daily aches without pills and pharmaceuticals. There is a point in your leg that relieves menstrual cramps. The same point can be pressed to bring on a late period. No one really talked about self inducing abortion, but if you knew the basics, you knew what you could do. Knowledge IS power. With knowledge, you are able to take care of yourself. Without knowledge, you are subject to political and moral restrictions. Without knowledge, you are a slave.

I lived on kibbutzim in Israel. What an experience! It's not for everyone, though. No private property. No exclusive wages. Work was shared and people did jobs that maybe some would find demeaning. For example, I knew a national artist that also washed dishes. When I didn't quite know the language, I washed dishes and cleaned out trash bins, too. No worry about losing all your money to medical expenses; medicine is socialized! Everyone contributes and you get the best attention. Food, three meals a day and 4:00 tea as well as snacks. Time! You work and you have free time to pursue whatever is your hobby. Children live in children houses, and when they spend time with their families, it is quality time, not TV time. And lots of cultural activities: movies, holiday events, visiting artists and musicians.

People scream and cry against socialism, and the ones who cry the loudest have never experienced living this way. Rather, choosing being wage slaves, having no time for themselves or their families is seen as better somehow. Being afraid of medical costs. Having to eat poor quality food because even fresh vegetables are expensive. No time for cultural enrichment like art! Gee. Somehow the balance is just not there. The freedom is imaginary. All in the name of individualism. No one lost their individual identities on the kibbutz. But if you have so many burdens just to make it day by day, what is left?

Why did I leave? I was single. Being single with no family in this setting was too painful. Nevertheless, I hold this experience as an example of what is possible and what alternatives exist.

Louis Farrakhan recently referred to Jews as cockroaches. Cockroaches are ugly disease carriers, invade your space in droves and mostly require extermination. They come up through pipes, and live in walls. They hide from the light and thrive in darkness.

I remember listening to an Imam shouting the same rhetoric. It was in Arabic, but his meaning, his tone, was clear. I was listening to him on the radio (by accident) while I was helping my friend pack his crystal glasses for his upcoming move. My hands were shaking. I had no idea how I was going to pack these glasses without breaking them. With great effort, I controlled myself.

If I am a beetle, I embrace that. The ancient Egyptians revered the scarab. Beetles, or cockroaches, have inhabited the earth for millions of years. They may be the longest living creatures. If you radiate them, they do not mutate. That's amazing. You can't get rid of them. I have a few in my apartment. I am not afraid of them nor do I try to kill them. I've even left a sweet potato out for them. Their only threat is from my cats. If they are bold enough to land on the floor, my cats get them. Otherwise, when I come into the kitchen, I make a loud noise and they run and hide.

Cockroaches love garbage. I am thinking Farrakhan and those of like mind, must have brains infected with lots of rotting garbage. They themselves may not be cockroaches, but they are food for the beetles. Long live beetles! Actually, my favorite is the ladybug. I even have one tattooed on my right leg.

Remember bra burning in the '60s? Wearing bras and girdles were simply uncomfortable. Squeezing into shape making devices was just the thing, though. These clothes were designed to give women a shape. Bras were too often fashioned into creating bosoms that resembled bombs: pointy and sticking out. They were also not helpful if you had to run; menstrual hormones often swelled the bosom and running made bouncing just painful. Running was just painful.

People were not into gyms, or exercising, so artificially creating a pleasing shape was the easy way out. Whatever your shape was, it was in need of some help to suit accepted ideas of what a woman was supposed to look like.

Luckily, now, working out is an accepted, almost, mandatory activity. And sports bras! You can run without bouncing and without pain. Under clothes, breasts have a rounded look. Sports bras are comfortable, too. No stays, or underwires. No hooks. No strap adjustments. The look is more natural. And those horrible girdles! Like sports bras, there are now these slip on stretchy underwear that are also comfortable, and help keep those bulges under wraps. All in all, women can achieve a good form without the torture.

I burned another pot today. It seems I have had this dangerous behavior for many years. When I was still at my family's house and in college, I somehow began. We had an all white house. I had started dinner, but had run upstairs to do some homework, then the smoke began. We didn't have a smoke alarm. The smoke began to fill the house. OMG. The whole white house was now sooty.

I realize how dangerous this behavior is. Luckily, I have a smoke alarm now. And it went off when my veggie burger was turning to ash. Once again, I had been busy doing something, this time on my computer.

As a raw foodist, I can nibble on my nuts or fruit while I am at the computer. No cooking. No standing in the kitchen watching over the process. I have to accept that if I am going to turn on the stove, I had better pay attention and be in the kitchen. I don't know. Do I just don't want to be in the kitchen? Is it a deep seated dislike of kitchen work?

Someone once told me to eat to live, not to live to eat. I hope this is the underlying cause of my behavior. I know lots of people who do live to eat, elaborately planning their menus, spending lots of time preparing their dishes, lots of time eating and cleaning up. Love is also attached to this. I can understand that. A traditional wife's role involves the kitchen and food. A mother worked so much on food preparation and the result was tied to her love and showing it to her family. Being a raw foodist, I may be closer to a food gatherer. An intelligent savage!